


Where We Start From

by andlightplay



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Gen, Injury Recovery, Miranda Lives AU, backstory reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:44:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8884468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andlightplay/pseuds/andlightplay
Summary: "Mrs Barlow?"

  “Miranda, please,” says the lady in question, one finger folded into her book to mark her place. “I think we can dispense with formality, now that I’ve had quite so much of your blood on my hands. How do you feel?”
 “Like I’ve had half my fucking leg hacked off,” Silver says bluntly, and catches the flash of amusement in her eyes before she sobers again.An AU of XVIII, where Silver goes to stay with Miranda to let his leg heal. He settles alarmingly well into domestic life, teases out some backstory, and learns to live with his injury.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andrea_deer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrea_deer/gifts).



Silver wakes to sunlight and to pain, a dull throb below the knee that worsens by the second. For a moment, he even forgets why; then the clouds of memory part and the clear stabbing lance of recollection breaks through. Strangely, it’s the sound he recalls most easily, and it echoes unpleasantly in his ears even now. He distracts himself by cataloguing his environment; he has apparently been given the privilege of recovering in the captain’s cabin, and he is comfortably ensconced at one of the huge windows at the ship’s stern, hence the sunlight.

He is also not alone.

“Mrs Barlow?”

“Miranda, please,” says the lady in question, one finger folded into her book to mark her place. “I think we can dispense with formality, now that I’ve had quite so much of your blood on my hands.” She watches him digest this with no change of expression, her face still set in the politely neutral mask he’s seen her wear about on deck, with only the slightest shift to disapprobation if any man’s eyes lingered on Miss Ashe too long. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve had half my fucking leg hacked off,” Silver says bluntly, and catches the flash of amusement in her eyes before she sobers again.

“I’m afraid to say that that is entirely too accurate. Dr Howell was able to retain much of the thigh, but everything below that was…unsalvagable. However, he wishes me to assure you that you will be quite capable of walking again once you’re healed enough for a prosthetic, and with the aid of crutches.”

“Marvellous,” Silver says, unable to quite hide the bitterness in his voice. “So I’m to be the ship’s cripple. Ah well, as Randall is dead I suppose someone ought to fill the vacancy.”

“Self-pity is best indulged sparingly, I find,” Miranda returns, with some measure of briskness. “From what I can gather, ‘ship’s cripple’ is not a role the crew envision for you. In fact, I imagine there are several men loitering outside the door even now, on the excuse of some menial task or other, to ensure that you don’t worsen, or want for anything.”

Silver considers this development with some surprise, and a small tingle of warmth. “Well, that being the case, they should GET BACK TO SOME REAL FUCKING WORK. Self-pitying I may be, but I certainly don’t intent to die.”

There is some suspicious shuffling and scuffling from outside, and Miranda smiles.

“An excellent outlook, Mr Silver.”

* * *

Even with Flint’s warning, being told that he has been elected Quartermaster is startling, an unexpected source of good feeling and confidence. He makes the requisite joke about not having expected to have paid an arm and a leg for it, but the laughter is cheerful and hearty and not at all a sop to that fact that he’s hanging off a fucking rope like a child to balance against the heaving and rolling of the ship beneath him.

Whether that incident sealed it for him or not, shortly afterwards Dr Howell announces that Silver needs to relearn how to walk on dry land before he attempts to do so at sea. Flint, who is present in the cabin as well and apparently genuinely concerned about Silver’s welfare, frowns and nods and exchanges a speaking glance with Miranda, and then pronounces that Silver will go and stay with her.

”What?” Silver says incredulously. “No, I- surely there’s somewhere else I could stay, I couldn’t possibly-”

“Where? The brothel?” Flint retorts. “I believe they generally only rent their beds out by the hour, not the week, and just lying there while they do all the work costs extra. Miranda is quite capable of overseeing your recovery, and there’s a local doctor nearby should he be required.”

“I can assure you, Mr Silver, than any rumours of my occult practises have been greatly exaggerated,” Miranda adds blandly.

“That’s not what I-”

“Excellent, then no one has any further objections,” Flint says, and Silver closes his mouth so fast he almost halves his tongue as well.

And so, once they make port in Nassau (greeted by the sight of the jagged open walls of the fort, cracked like an egg and advertising similar vulnerabilities and unprotected bounty to anyone who should care to look), Silver is helped down out of the Captain’s cabin to go and finish convalescing in the Captain’s house. Miranda had fortunately taken a horse and cart to town, so Silver is at least able to travel comfortably, Miranda occasionally venturing a remark on this or that but mostly leaving him to his thoughts. Flint had left them at the docks, saying something ominous about going to “talk” to Rackham; Silver is reasonably certain that murder hadn’t been foremost in his mind, but with Flint it is sometimes hard to tell.

The house is modest, a white-washed single storey with nothing to differentiate it from those surrounding it, or to indicate that one of the most feared pirate captains of the New World lives there when he comes ashore. Miranda tuts over the wilting garden, evidently a victim of her absence, and comes to help Silver down.

“I can manage,” he objects, rather aggrieved at the implication that he needs her assistance and swinging a crutch perhaps closer to her than he should, though she merely leans further out of its way, levels him with a disapproving look and acquiesces to his badly articulated wishes, leaving him to struggle out of the cart and hobble inside alone.

It’s cooler there, pleasantly so, and very much…as he expected it, knowing it to be Miranda’s. The furniture is rather worn and serviceable rather than elegant, but somehow there is a refined air about the place anyway, the dainty china cups and the shelves full of books. Silver collapses into the nearest chair available, managing not to jar his leg in the process, and waits for her to follow him in so he can apologise.

“Look, I- Miranda, I’m sorry. I’m still not used to…this, and I find that I rather overreact to the implication that I can’t do anything, especially something as simple as climbing out of a cart.”

She favours him with a cool look over the apronful of somewhat shriveled vegetables she’s carrying. “Alright, I accept your apology. But perhaps you should try a little harder to rein your temper in, especially around those who aren’t trying to belittle you, only to help. Also, James has mentioned your…culinary abilities, but I trust that peeling and chopping these won’t be beyond you?”

* * *

They settle into a routine remarkably swiftly, Silver taking up residence at the table and doing whatever peeling, chopping, steeping, cutting or sewing Miranda needs while she moves around him, fetching and carrying and labouring. Silver initially feels mildly awkward and passingly bitter at seeing her with dirt and grass stains on her skirts, or heaving water buckets around for him to wash his leg with or pour into the pot for supper, but she dismisses his concern with an unladylike snort and informs him tartly that she has been doing this for ten years without his hand-wringing and fully intends to do it for ten more.

“Of that I have no doubt,” Silver assures her, and then continues a little more cautiously, “but you certainly weren’t doing it for the ten years prior to that,” and she shoots him a sharp look.

“No,” she concedes, “I wasn’t.”

“In fact, I would hazard that you were rather at the opposite end of the spectrum.”

She straightens, wiping her hands on her apron and watching him with a frank, assessing gaze that reminds him forcefully of Flint. “I was. My husband and I came to know James in London, and he became our very dear friend. I came with him to New Providence when Thomas, my husband, was wrongfully imprisoned, and exchanged all my fine things for the freedom of an anonymous life, lived on our own terms.”

Silver wants badly to ask about Flint before he was Flint, about what happened to her wealthy husband to get him incarcerated and necessitate her fleeing halfway around the globe, but he restrains himself. “And he was Mr Barlow?”

“No,” she says, with a faint smile that dares him to ask anything further. “That is my own name.”

* * *

Flint reappears a week or so later, face set in his customary scowl.

“Rackham’s walled the gold up in the fort, and is issuing it out in wage packets and promisary notes. He’s _paying_ men to rebuild the fort, and sitting on the rest like the smug fucking cock he is. That slippery new brothel madame isn’t helping either, whispering in his ear via Bonny, who’s fucking besotted with her.” He flings himself into a chair and glares at them both.

“Bonny’s left Rackham for a woman?” Silver repeats. “Max? French accent, devious as shit? Wow.”

“You sound as though you’re familiar with her,” Miranda says dryly, measuring out a portion of tealeaves.

“I, ah…,” Silver darts a glance at Flint, who remains impassive. “I considered going into business with her, once upon a time. She was one of the first people I met in Nassau, and she always struck me as a woman of ambition, which she has certainly achieved now.”

“Well I’m fucking ecstatic for her,” Flint growls, “but she is blocking my access to the fucking gold that _I_ have been chasing for years, and that _I_ would have been able to claim if my own fucking men hadn’t _lied_ _to me_ and then if the winds of fate hadn’t spread pestilence among the Spanish just as we were sailing off in the opposite fucking direction, while some fucking shit convinced Jack fucking Rackham to sneak in and fucking _steal_ it.”

Silver keeps his expression neutral, but accepts Miranda’s offered cup of tea with some relief, shielding himself further behind it.

“Oh, and Eleanor Guthrie’s been fucking sold off to the goddman Navy,” Flint adds. “That cowardly fuck Hornigold kidnapped her and ran off to exchange her for his own worthless hide. Word is she’ll be tried and hung for aiding and abetting piracy.”

Miranda’s hand lights briefly on his shoulder, squeezing.

“She’s a resourceful girl, and gossip is not truth.”

The words have the ring of history behind them, and Flint huffs, apparently soothed by them. Silver stores that away for future consideration, and diverts his attention to his tea.

* * *

“Now, _carefully_ ,” Miranda admonishes, and steps back. Silver takes a deep breath and hops forward a pace, leaning back into his arms, which are still stationary and holding the crutches. It takes all of his faith, and the knowledge that Miranda is watching him, to swing them forward after him and all the way back to his front, so that he is leaning into them the opposite way, almost bent double with the slightly excessive force of his movement and hopping an extra inch or two to keep his balance.

Miranda is smiling, wide and bright, and Silver sees for the first time the shadow of the woman she used to be, vivacious and beautiful. He smiles back.

“Again,” she orders, taking another large step backwards - rather like a mother teaching her child to walk, Silver thinks, and surprises himself by chuckling at the thought even as he successfully executes another forward hop. “Good.”

“I feel like a staggering infant,” he tells her, and she looks rueful.

“Sorry. I hope I’m not treating you too much like a child.”

“No, no, it’s not you at all, it’s my clumsy attempts at walking. At this rate I’ll only be back on the _Walrus_ if she’s becalmed.”

“Nonsense,” Miranda says briskly. “You already know how to walk, you’re just having to adjust. These things take time, and you have to let them. That’s how you heal.” She fixes him with a firm glare. “Besides, Dr Howell said you’re to get a iron foot, so you’ll only have to bear these crutches for a short while. So chin up, Mr Silver, and let’s see you finish crossing the room, if you please.”

He bobs his head to her, not bothering to stifle his amusement. “Aye aye, Captain.”

* * *

As soon as he feels he can reliably use both crutches he starts weaning himself down to one on his bad side, leaving his other arm and hand free to hold things and help Miranda out a little more, whatever she might say about being quite used to managing on her own. He endures an afternoon standing in the garden while she plants new seedlings, clutching the bowl of tiny, fragile plants to his chest and sweating under the sun despite the large, floppy hat she’d insisted he wear. He holds the container of paint for her as she touches up the walls of the house, humming under her breath. He even helps her beat the bedclothes when she hangs them out, which he has to admit he finds oddly satisfying.

“I can trim your hair for you, if you’d like,” she offers one evening, when the light from the candle keeps getting blocked by the curls falling over his shoulder. “I’ve done James’ before, and I don’t think he looks terribly asymmetrical.”

“No, thank you,” Silver says, after some consideration. “I don’t mind it the rest of the time, it’s just becoming inconvenient in this sort of situation.”

“Well then, I’d imagine you want something to tie it back with,” Miranda says, and disappears off into her room. She reappears with a length of ribbon, which she hands to him and watches him bind his hair into some semblance of order at the nape of his neck.

“James used to have long hair,” she says quietly, and Silver goes still. “He also used to pull it back - much less haphazardly than that, of course, but he was well practised.”

“How did you know him?” Silver asks softly, meeting her eyes. Miranda glances away after a moment, and sits herself down before she answers.

“Thomas, my husband, had some very grand ideas about pirates,” she says slowly, eyes on her own hands, laced together on the tabletop in front of her. “This was back when England kept trying to impose governors here, and kept losing them just as quickly. Thomas decided that we should perhaps tackle the problem differently, and instead of punishing the rebellious parties, we should pardon them and let them rule themselves. James was…sent to try and talk him out of the idea, but instead he became a convert to it.”

“Is that why your husband was imprisoned?”

Miranda lets out her breath all at once. “Yes. Partly. His father was a very influential man in government, and he disliked what Thomas was trying to do. He fabricated a story about James and I having an affair, and had Thomas, his own son, locked up under the pretense that he was maddened by grief.” Her voice shakes a little, and Silver reaches abortively out to her. She makes a funny little twitching motion, almost as if she was considering reaching back. “Of course, the bill that was being proposed was scrapped, and James and I had to leave the country under pain of suffering Thomas’ fate.” She pauses. “Sometimes, I think we made the wrong choice.”

“No,” Silver says immediately. “If Flint wasn’t here…everything would be different." He pauses, tasting the truth of what he's about to say next. "That’s what he’s trying to do, isn’t it? With the gold? Buy us a pardon, let us self-govern. That’s why he chased it all those years. For you.”

“And Thomas,” Miranda says firmly. Silver admires her loyalty to a husband ten years absent.

“Do you know what happened to him?” he asks tentatively, and Miranda closes her eyes.

“He died in the madhouse, not a year after we fled.” Her eyes reopen. “In Charlestown, we discovered that the governor there, Abigail’s father Peter Ashe, had helped Thomas’ father bring evidence against him, and got his position in Carolina as a reward. He was one of our dearest friends, and he betrayed us.” Her voice is a snarl now, and once again she reminds Silver of Flint, but where his rage is a contained and smoldering thing, hers is fresh-fed and blazing. “He tried to betray us again but Charles Vane, a fucking pirate, proved he had more honour than him and blew his town to flinders.”

Silver lets her savour that moment of revenge while he mulls over what he now knows. Something about it still feels off, hollow. What man would imprison his own son for radical ideas? What madhouse would accept him on the evidence of another, and for what crime? And who was Flint that he would be sent to try and talk a man into sense?

“Thank you,” he says, aloud. “For telling me this.”

Miranda shrugs. “It’s nice to have someone to listen. James and I don’t talk about it a lot; it’s too close, too painful still. I don’t recommend you mention this to him,” she adds, and Silver twitches a smile.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to.”

* * *

Silver is watering the garden when he hears the horses, and looks up to find Flint, accompanied by two others who resolve themselves into Billy and Dr Howell.

“Captain,” he says evenly once they’ve dismounted and come close enough to hear him, nodding his head to the other two. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” Flint says, squinting in the sun and looking askance the floppy hat Silver is wearing, borrowed from Miranda. “Have we interrupted your horticulture?”

“I like to help Mrs Barlow out, now that I’m able.” Silver glances at Dr Howell, but the man merely nods agreeably.

“In that case, you’ll be pleased to know that Dr Howell is here to check on the progress of your leg, and to see whether you’re ready to be fitted with the prosthesis yet,” Flint returns, and gestures them all inside.

Miranda has made them all tea, and Silver watches Billy’s attempts at subtle gawking with some amusement. He, it transpires, is there on behalf of the crew to vouchsafe Silver’s continuing recovery and to attest to the fact that Miranda has not ensorcelled him, nor inducted him into any satanic rites. Silver grits his teeth and bears Dr Howell’s examination of his leg in full view of the other three, though Miranda tactfully steers Flint and Billy away and questions them about their latest voyage, leaving the distasteful sight of the scarred stump for the doctor alone.

He pronounces Silver to be doing very well, and allows that he might return to the _Walrus_ within the month if he continues on as he is now and doesn’t set himself back at all by overreaching or lack of care. Silver honestly isn’t sure that he feels as pleased as he should about that - oh, certainly he wants to back with the men, drunken louts though they are, as he finds he misses Muldoon’s cheerful jokes and Joji’s eloquent eyebrow and Billy’s exasperated brand of fondness and Flint’s keen, vulpine intellect - but the latter at least he has not particularly been lacking, Miranda having her own sly way with words. And there has been a strange and rare peace to be found here like nothing he’s ever quite experienced before; not that he is now eager to give up the ship and set up a homestead, but he never has been much of a sailor.

Still, all that species of naval-gazing will keep for another time, and he sees Billy and Dr Howell off with the expected level of cheer. Flint, of course, stays, retreating to a chair with one of the books and occasionally shooting Silver sharp little glances, as though he knows some of what Silver has been thinking about his life here, or what Miranda has been telling him about their past. Silver keeps his expression neutral, and helps Miranda out as he usually would, pretending not to notice how Flint’s glaring increases in frequency, and his brow furrows more deeply, as time goes on and the candles burn down.

Silver sees himself off to bed as soon as it’s appropriate, and lies there listening to the low murmur of conversation from the other room; Flint’s deeper growl, sometimes rising to an emphatic snarl, and Miranda’s higher, clearer counterpoint, never quite loud enough to make out the individual words. He hears them eventually get up and go into Miranda’s room, and for the first time really contemplates the idea that they share a bed. Miranda speaks of Flint often, always calling him James and often with a soft and reminiscent tone, but she doesn’t act like a besotted lover, nor a long-familiar wife. She refers to him more as a beloved friend, with a rich and fondly remembered history, but she rarely if ever shares stories of him set in Nassau. Perhaps this is because he is rarely present, always off at sea, but Silver suspects that is merely a good excuse; it is because she doesn’t like the man he became here, and prefers to recall the man he used to be, when her husband was alive and she had a place in the world.

Certainly, the house falls quickly into sleeping silence, with no creaking of bedframes or muffled sounds. That could mean nothing, or it could mean everything. Thomas’ father “fabricated” a tale of Flint and Miranda fucking to conveniently excuse his son’s imprisonment, and in all likelihood it continued to be nothing but a lie; what, then, was Thomas locked up for? What is the remaining part of the reasoning behind his incarceration? The civilised world has some odd notions about what constitutes madness, beyond the obvious hallucinations and delusions; treason is one, if Thomas’ ideas of pardoning pirates had been in too much danger of success. But what, then, of Governor Ashe, who provided important “evidence” for the arrest? Did he plant some particularly damning articles on Thomas’ desk to make him seem more of a radical? Or did he see something, know something, and Thomas’ father bought his silence with the governorship and had his son quietly locked away?

Silver turns the thought over carefully, like a man who finds a precious stone while digging and holds it cautiously up to the light to check it’s veracity. Perversions and sexual deviances are hardly unusual, but the aristocracy like to disavow them if they contrive to come to light and sweep them under the rug - or into the madhouse, as the case may be. And of course, the other parties involved would be threatened with similar and hastily removed from any association with the nobility, and might, in fear and grief, flee halfway around the world and end up seeking refuge with the very pirates they had sought to legitimise.

Like gleaming facets coming into the light, Silver sees several things with a new and startling clarity. Flint’s loneliness, his determined solitary but for the one woman who perfectly understands him, while also providing a convenient smokescreen. The marked difference between him and other captains, not just in manner but in practise; Flint can shape curses like no one Silver has ever heard and he drinks as much as anyone, but there are no tales of his sordid exploits with the brothel women, not even whispered below decks with every other kind of filthy rumour known to man. His friendship with Eleanor Guthrie, a vibrant and passionate young woman who has proven herself perfectly amenable to fucking pirates, and whom Flint apparently regards as a slightly wayward daughter.

The idea of just how untrue it might have been to say that the person in that marriage that Flint had had an affair with was Miranda.

Silver feels as though he has come into possession of a winning hand of poker, the facts fanned out before his eyes, inexorable and ruinous from the moment he chooses to show them.

He carefully furls them back into his grasp and tucks them away.

* * *

Miranda is waiting for him when he gets up, sitting at the table with something large and flat resting against the leg - a portrait, Silver realises, and banishes the intrusive thought that she knows what he has worked out.

“James and I talked last night,” she says with no preamble, looking down at her tea. “I thought it best that if he had to hear that I’ve been telling you things about our past, that it should come from me.”

“Is he…still here?”

“No, but he’ll be back. He just requires some time to accept that I have deemed you worthy of trust, even though he believes it too.” She smiles faintly. “And so, I am trusting you with this. It is a portrait done some twelve years ago, of Thomas and I. I felt that you should know what he looked like, since you’ve heard so much about him.”

Silver approaches slowly, and Miranda helps him turn the picture around while he balances on one leg. The image is unremarkable to one who doesn’t know the subjects; a man and a woman posing together, young and happy. Miranda’s hair is curled and styled and pinned, her gown richly coloured and her jewellery beautifully coordinated to match. Thomas is young and broad-shouldered, arm in arm with his wife, proud and strong and vital. The plate at the bottom reads: _Thomas and Miranda Hamilton_.

“We were able to save a few things from the house,” Miranda continues softly, gazing down at her husband’s painted face. “Much of it turned out to be impractical once we were here, but this… I can’t have it hanging, there would be too many questions, but I’m so glad we were able to salvage this, even though it’s the most impractical of all.”

Silver gives her a moment to collect herself, studying the picture. To one who knows her, the image of Miranda bears little resemblance to the real woman, her frozen face stuck in an unnatural mask, remote and blank. It seems fair to imagine that Thomas was similarly different to the way he is depicted, stern and cold, and certainly not a man who would envision declaring clemency for pirates.

“And this,” Miranda says, drawing his attention back to her. “This was Thomas’, and then he gifted it to James. I believe you’ll get the fullest sense of him, and of James, and even of me, if you read it all.” She pushes a book towards him across the table with the flat of her hand, eyes locked on him. Silver picks it up with due care; its cover is a little worn, the spines of the pages a little discoloured from years of use.

He flips it open.

“Begin at the very beginning,” Miranda says quietly.

 _James_ , reads the flowing inscription on the opening page. _My truest love. Know no shame. T.H._

Silver imagines himself meticulously laying out his cards, revealing the truths he knows, and looking up to find the dealer smiling at him, her own hand that rare combination that beats his.

“I had guessed,” he hears himself say. “Some parts of it were clearly only half-told, glossed over. I can only say that I’m sorry; he sounds like he was a good man.”

“He was wonderful,” Miranda agrees, her gaze briefly far away, her expression soft.

“And,” Silver adds hesitantly, “know that I’m acutely aware of the trust that you have placed in me, in revealing this, and know that it is not misplaced. Whatever else I may feel for Captain Flint, I hold a great deal of respect for him, and for you, and I have no wish to jeopardise my standing with either of you.”

Miranda’s smile is slow and warm, still tinged with melancholy. “I doubt there is much damage you could do here compared to what has already been done to us, but I appreciate the sentiment, Mr Silver.”

“I think, given all that has now passed between us,” he says, catching her eyes, “that you can probably call me John.”

* * *

“I wouldn’t dream of asking to take this with me, when I return to the ship,” Silver says, closing _Meditations_  around his fingers to mark his place, “but I fear I shall be a long time reading it yet.”

“You’ll have to make certain you come back in the future, then,” Miranda answers lightly, glancing up from her sewing. The firelight warms her features, burnishing her hair and softening the harsher evidence of her recent difficult years. She is served well by it, gently luminous. “Or, I could read it to you. I used to do that, for James and Thomas, and Thomas once read it to me when we were newly-weds. I could likely recite it from memory.”

“I imagine that you know the text better than I, and as such could draw more meaning from it. I’d like to hear it as you tell it, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” she says, setting aside her mending and taking the book from him, fingers brushing as she ensures she keeps his place. She finds the place where he left off and smoothly takes up the thread; her voice is low and rich and measured, following the cadence of the words with a familiar rhythm, and Silver settles back and listens.

* * *

Dr Howell comes back to fit the iron foot accompanied by Flint, who stays to oversee the procedure despite Miranda’s attempts to distract him. Silver stares blindly up at the ceiling and tries to ignore all of them, unwilling to do any more than experience the disconcerting and uncomfortable sensations of a prosthetic limb slotting into the place of his real one. The contraption straps around his thigh and cups the severed end of his leg, and it feels alien and wrong in all ways, both as an inadequate replacement for what he’s lost and as an addition to scar tissue still sensitive and unused to the touch of anything else.

Still, when he stands up he can walk on two legs, and his trousers can be let out again to fall to their full length, only presence of his crutch and the iron peg sticking out of the cuff evidence of his disability.

It’s not enough, but it will have to do.

“Assuming you get along with this okay, you can come back to the ship with the Captain in a few days,” Dr Howell tells him, eyeing him sternly. “But do not overdo it, Mr Silver, or you’ll be back to two crutches and guide ropes.”

“Trust me, that’s a most effective deterrent,” Silver replies honestly, and Dr Howell leaves satisfied.

It is a very ominous threat, but it feels so good to be walking about on two feet again, even if one is metal, that Silver is willing to risk the irritation of the scar tissue and the raw rub of the prosthetic on his new skin. Even the blood is a price worth paying, a mere trickle and smear from parts of the injury insufficiently healed to handle his exuberant striding about. The muscle tremors are the worst, twinging and cramping at night in protest at his sudden activity and the demand put upon flesh grown soft and weak from disuse.

He knows Miranda watches him, and so does Flint, both of them mindful of what Dr Howell said, but he hides his afflictions from them, unwilling to see Flint’s irritation or condemnation, nor Miranda’s pity.

* * *

The morning of their departure dawns fair and bright, just like every other day, and Silver exits his room to find Miranda at the table again, nursing a cup if tea with her hair loose around her shoulders. She gives him a small but genuine smile when she sees him, and tells him that there’s more tea in the pot and hot water for tending to his leg.

“Thank you,” he says, as sincerely as he knows how, and means it for more than just today. “Miranda, I honestly don’t know how to-”

“Don’t,” she returns, holding up a hand, expression serious. “We helped each other, I think, and I think we’re both the better for it.” Her eyes are warm when she looks at him, framed by the tumble of her hair.

Impulsively, Silver plucks her hand from the table and kisses the knuckles, lingering. Her skin is soft, and smells faintly of lavender. Her breath catches, surprised, and then she draws her hand free to rest her fingers against his cheek. Her mouth curves into a smile, eyes bright.

She presses a book into his hands later as he is climbing aboard the cart, not _Meditations_ but another volume, slimmer and smaller. “In case you should find yourself in want of something to read,” she explains, and Silver feels Flint’s eyes on him, knows the significance of what is happening here. “And of course, I should like it returned to me please, undamaged if at all possible.”

“I shall do my utmost to oblige you,” Silver says, as sincere as he has ever been, and tucks the book into his jacket, over his heart. “Goodbye, Miranda.”

“Goodbye, John.” She turns to Flint, kisses his cheek, whispers something into his ear. Her hands settle briefly over his, squeezing, and then are gone. Flint clicks his tongue and the horse moves off, the cart rumbling behind it. Miranda is a white-robed figure standing on her porch, arm raised in farewell, until she’s swallowed by distance and the blinding light of the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide andrea_deer!
> 
> I'll admit that I was all set to write you something else until a kinkmeme prompt sold me on this pairing, and now I'm actually totally invested in it and would absolutely be up for writing a porny Flint/Silver/Miranda sequel at some point in the future. So I guess the greatest gift was the OT3 I gained along the way, or something :D


End file.
